


everyone's lookin' for a gold rush

by freolia



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cowboy AU, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, blatant overuse of the word partner, yeehaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28267542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freolia/pseuds/freolia
Summary: "Sit down," Koutarou tells him, his hair a little flat but his eyes bright against the dust and dirt that follows them everywhere these days as they compete over who can hit the highest bounty on their heads. Kenma is worth more than both of them put together, as Akaashi is fond of coolly reminding them whenever they turn up on his doorstep. "Let me -""I don't need you to, Kou," Tetsurou says, part of their routine just as much. "I can wrap it myself."~The bank heist didn't go to plan, but Kuroo already feels pretty darn rich.
Relationships: Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 23
Kudos: 71





	everyone's lookin' for a gold rush

**Author's Note:**

> i've been thinking about cupotoast's cowboy au. for DAYS. i really wanted to write something funny as well, but kuroo seemed determined to be tender, so. 
> 
> https://twitter.com/cupotoast/status/1338660487232323587
> 
> send help.

The stars are out in force by the time Tetsurou motions for the horses to stop, Koutarou barely blinking his eyes open next to him. They're barely into the mountain foothills here, and the second they lit a fire, they'd be visible to every lawmaker this side of the county. It will have to be a cold night, he thinks with a frown, aching and battered and desperate for something warm.

"We stoppin'?" Koutarou mumbles sleepily, looking ready to fall off his horse. He'd been incredible earlier, as he always is when Tetsurou needs him most. 

He smiles in spite of the slow, achey ooze of blood from the bullet graze stabbing against his bicep, ruining his favourite shirt. 

It has never been a cold night with Koutarou by his side. 

"Yeah, before you fall off and break your neck," he drawls, cradling his arm against his chest as he slides off his palomino, patting the golden neck carefully. Keiji had been faster than the wind to get them out of trouble.

"I wouldn't," Koutarou scoffs, coming back to life with Tetsurou's fire underneath him. They'd been riding for hours to hot tail it from Marshal Daichi and what had almost been a complete disaster of a bank heist. 

"You would," Tetsurou fires back so easily, relenting as Koutarou pushes him away from unpacking the saddlebags with a stern glance between his face and his arm, feeling a little useless as he watches the leather jacket shift over muscles that he can almost feel shifting under his fingers. 

He has known everything he has ever  _ needed _ to about Bokuto Koutarou since the day he met him, and loved him for everything else for almost as long. 

"Sit down," Koutarou tells him, his hair a little flat but his eyes bright against the dust and dirt that follows them everywhere these days as they compete over who can hit the highest bounty on their heads. Kenma is worth more than both of them put together, as Akaashi is fond of coolly reminding them whenever they turn up on his doorstep. "Let me -"

"I don't need you to, Kou," Tetsurou says, part of their routine just as much. "I can wrap it myself." 

Golden eyes meet shadowed gold. "What's the point of having a partner -" Koutarou manages before they both start sniggering again, quieting slowly as Tetsurou lets him remove his shirt with an appreciative whistle that has never stopped making him smile. 

There is a beautiful long moment where Koutarou's star fully occupies Tetsurou's sky, eyes focused and worried as his fingers work deceptively fast to tighten a bandage. "You really need to be more careful," he chides, and Tetsurou can't help but smile.

"Well if you learn how to watch your back in a gunfight, I won't have to cover for you. You're the one to be careful." He bickers with no heat, no resentment. He'd take a shot every time rather than ever risk Koutarou. Even if they could really have used the money they'd failed to steal. They'd lived with nothing before, and here, now - Tetsurou feels he maybe had a little taste of everything. 

"Don't need to watch my back when I've got you," Koutarou says, an apology in the care of his fingers as he twines them up Tetsurou's neck, light in the strands at the back of his head. It's almost unbearably tender, the way that Koutarou watches him and touches him like a thing to be cherished, but Tetsurou has had a lot of practice with it. His own hand slips to a strong shoulder, a pull close enough to draw Koutarou's mouth to his like breathing in after hours on the road, warm and heavy and the only home he knows after days and years and a life of running. There's a moment before the kiss, hovering a gasp apart where Koutarou lets him just absorb before he sets out to remind Tetsurou that his reputation for impatience is well earned.

Koutarou tastes like dust in the air, fingers through his hair are the wind at full gallop, everything he's been running from and to since he was fifteen and starving on the streets and living off gold stolen from the eyes in front of him. His mind wanders, wonders what Koutarou tastes in him. Whether it is just as worth holding onto. He doesn’t wonder for long with the way that Koutarou draws back to lean their foreheads together, eyes closed and relief in every little line of him. 

Tetsurou holds onto very little, lives his life dancing on one of Kenma's knife blades knowing there isn't enough balance to keep anything with him. But still. He will not let  _ this _ go. 

"You taste like ass," he tells him instead with a tired smirk which Koutarou has to see straight through if the way his fingers soften on Tetsurou's injured arm is any indication at all.

"Yet you’re still here," Koutarou teases him right back, drawing him to a sit, guiding his head to thump against a steady heart. "We'll get the next one, Tetsu. Bad draw this time."

"Bad draws for a couple of months now, partner." Tetsurou submits easily, his ear against warm, hard muscle to lean on that beat which syncopates his own. He's tired of losing. It wears on the soul, and he doesn't like to think about where he'd be if he was still losing on his own. 

"What's that stupid thing you always say?" Koutarou hums, and Tetsurou can feel it all the way through his chest. He's too tired to even protest the use of  _ stupid  _ in that sentence. "Gotta stack the deck in our favour." 

"Sounds stupid," he says, his mouth twitching, "What kind of crap saying is that?" He's a sucker for a card metaphor, but that doesn't mean they've ever made sense.

The fingers never stop carding through his hair. The night is dark, but it's never empty with someone like Koutarou. "Dunno, but it came out of the prettiest mouth you'd ever see." 

"Damn it, Kou," Tetsurou groans, smiling far too much. No one has ever been immune to Koutarou's brand of charm, himself least of all. "That was awful." 

“I know,” he replies, and Tetsurou can hear the smile in it. “Get some rest, Tetsu. First watch is mine.” 

“You better wake me up for mine,” he tries to warn, the serious tone broken by a yawn forcing its way out, and he knows Koutarou won’t wake him even as he smiles and agrees. He never has when he’s worried about Tetsurou. Even when he’s so desperate for rest he’s been at risk of falling asleep at the reigns. 

His head hits Koutarou’s thigh; one hand slips comfortingly to his waist as his partner murmurs something that Tetsurou doesn’t quite hear with the other hand over his ear, already caught halfway to sleep in the safest home he knows. 

He knows what Koutarou said, even if he doesn’t know which words he used this time. 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is still just titled i wanna be a cowboy babyyy in my files. gahh. 
> 
> god bless cupotoast, lord and saviour, long may your cowboy au ride <3


End file.
